The QC Boys Club
by alayneni
Summary: AU. Its been five years since the death of Robert Queen and Oliver Queen is trying to live up to Walter Steele's expectations and become the next CEO of Queen Consolidated. An unfortunate incident with his laptop leads him to meet one Felicity Smoak and angry comment from her prompts Thea to come up with a crazy plan that has Oliver dressing as a woman!
1. Ch 1 - The Laptop Issue

**The QC Boys Club**

Ch 1 – The First Meeting

Oliver Queen sat in the board room of Queen Consolidated listening to yet another department head talk about the company's performance in the last quarter. They had been at this since 9:00am and it was already 2:00pm with five more division heads to go. It didn't help that every time his attention drifted, Walter Steele, CEO of QC kept pulling his attention back to the presentation being given. The current presenter was the head of applied sciences. Oliver felt like he needed a translator to understand what the man was saying and judging by the look on some of the other department heads, he wasn't the only one in that category for a change. There was one presentation to come that he was looking forward to, Ms. Isabel Rochev's, Vice President of QC and Head of Foreign Operations. She was always entertaining. Of course that might also have to do with the fact that he had a few clandestine rendezvous with her and some of the supposedly innocent things she would say during her presentations were codes for things she had done with Oliver.

It was past 9:00pm when the meeting had finally finished and Oliver needed a nice relaxing night but it was a Friday and he had to work on keeping his public playboy image intact. A few of the Department Heads, Derrick from Marketing, Liam from IT, Ben from Accounts and Jake from the Audit department were asking for VIP passes to Verdant, the hottest night club in Starling City which he just happened to co-own with his best friend Tommy Merlyn.

Oliver gave the men one his signature Oliver Queen smiles "Not a problem gentlemen, I'll have your names added to the list for tonight."

A round a raucous laughter erupted from the men and they headed to the elevators talking about who would get laid that night, never mind that Oliver was sure that half of them were married. He glanced over at Walter and let him know he would be heading off as well and he joined the men in front of the elevators. He half heartedly listened to their conversation while wondering if the applied science unit couldn't come up with a super speed elevator.

"Derrick, perhaps maybe tonight you could avoid getting pepper sprayed!" Ben teased.

Derrick's face soured. "That was one time and it was that blonde nerdy chick in Liam's department. Have you fired her yet?"

"Still looking for an excuse that would stand up with HR and court in case she sues." Liam responded.

"That prude would definitely sue." Jake chimed in.

The ding of the elevator sounded and the men stepped into the elevator. Oliver decided he would let them go and take the next one. He hadn't cared much for their conversation and despite the playboy image that he actively portrayed to the world, womanising was something he had actually given up. His thoughts turned to Verdant. It was an experiment and it was proving that he could be a good businessman. It had been Walter's idea for him to try a business outside of QC to practice the application of the business principles he was learning in college. Walter certainly didn't want him experimenting on QC, even though Oliver was slowly being included in the operational aspects of the company. Oliver had dropped out of four colleges and was now in his fifth, Starling City University Business School, thanks to Walter. This college experience though was proving very different to his previous attempts at getting a degree. For one thing, he had managed to stick with it. He had three years completed and was on his last and final year. He was looking forward to the submission of his final project, which he already knew he was going to do on Verdant.

Monday morning found Oliver and Thea at the University coffee shop for their ritual cup of coffee to start off a new week. Thea was in her first year studying strategic marketing but she was currently groaning about the Spanish class she had chosen to take as an elective in her first year. She had thought learning Spanish would make it easy to pick up some hot latin guys but the actual learning of the subject was proving to be more difficult than she imagined.

The barista came over to shamelessly flirt with Oliver, like she did every Monday and Thea did her sisterly duty and shooed her away.

"So how was the club this weekend?" Thea asked casually,

"You're not allowed to come to the club." Oliver answered automatically.

"Why? Maybe I could find a hot Latin guy to tutor me in Spanish?" She countered.

"You're not finding a hot anything to tutor you." Oliver stated firmly.

"That's not fair!" Thea exclaimed.

"Life isn't fair." Oliver responded.

"Fine," Thea said angrily standing up sending her chair flying backwards into the chair of a guy dressed in a red hoodie. He had just lifted his espresso to his mouth, when the sudden jerk sent him forward spilling the drink across his laptop. A few loud curses sprung from his mouth before he turned to glare at the cause of the problem.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry." Thea exclaimed using the most innocent expression she could make.

All of the anger seemed to deflate out of the man as he watched her. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

"It's ok as long as the laptop is fine," He said.

"I can buy you a new one?" Thea offered. Money wasn't a problem for her and the way the boy was dressed, he looked like he could use a break.

"Roy Harper," he said holding out his hand and eyeing her carefully. She was young, probably a freshman like him, but she didn't have the look of a person struggling to pay tuition and holding down two jobs. No her fancy manicure on her hands said she hadn't worked a day in her life and he certainly could do with a new laptop. This one was old, very slow and stolen. He had no problems getting a new laptop legally from someone who could more than afford it.

"Thea Queen," she responded easily. "Here's my number. I'll have that new laptop for you by the end of the week."

Roy took the card and watched the young girl march out of the coffee shop. He glanced at the guy she was sitting with and recognised him as Oliver Queen and he was on the receiving end of what looked like a quite deadly glare from the Queen heir. He shrugged it off. Where he was from he had seen much worse, the girl was probably Queen's flavour of the week and his only interest in her, was a brand new laptop. He pocketed the number, collected the old laptop that he was hoping he could sell for parts now and headed to his next class.

Oliver's office was a small space that had been squeezed in between the VP's offices. It had belonged to a secretary before but she was moved to give him a workspace. It was Thursday and he only had one class early in the morning, which he would usually attend before coming into QC. Because he was still taking classes, his work load at QC was light. He mainly reviewed work that was already approved by Walter for him to gain an insight into how the company worked and what the role of the CEO was. Nothing had been brought to him today so he was working on a paper for his business ethics class. That was his most boring class and he didn't understand why he had to take it when the business world was not exactly the most ethical world. He was interrupted from his paper when the door to his office opened and Isabel waltzed in.

"Hello lover," She all but purred at him. She was in one of those moods, the mood where their relationship would become on again.

Oliver sighed and put on his fake smile. "Hello Isabel, as nice as it is to see you, I have a paper to finish that I need to hand in tomorrow by 5:00pm," he told her and returned his attention to the laptop.

She pushed the screen of the laptop down and Oliver barely moved his hands in time before the cover came slamming down.

"I'm sure you can spare me a few minutes, well maybe an hour." She clarified leaning forward for him to get a good view down the front of her business suit. A good enough view for him to realise she wasn't wearing a bra. He swallowed.

"I really need to get this done." Oliver answered as he pulled at the tie around his neck. It had suddenly become kind of hot in there.

"I'm sure you can finish this off later." She said leaning further forward.

Oliver leaned back in his chair to put more distance between them. He was so close to graduating, to completing his degree, he had promised Walter he would not screw it up this time. "I need to finish it before I get home." He insisted.

A flash of anger went through her eyes. He knew she could be very spiteful when she didn't get her way. He had seen her make grown men cry.

"My secretary has some files in a box that need filing in the storage room in the basement. Why don't you go help her with it now." Isabel ordered.

Oliver glared. She was using their secret hook-ups over him to get him to do what she wanted. He was no woman's pawn but he did not want to disappoint Walter after everything the man had taught him.

"Fine," He stood abruptly, his jaw clenching in anger. "Just remember, that one day I will be CEO, and we'll see who will be pulling the strings then."

His threat had no effect on her and as soon as he left the office, her attention turned to his laptop and a wicked smile formed on her face.

Oliver returned half an hour later to find his laptop missing and he immediately knew Isabel had taken it. He marched right past her secretary and into her office demanding she return his laptop.

"I like it when you're angry." She purred.

"Where is my laptop Isabel." He said in a dangerous tone.

"Fine if you want it, that's it in the corner." Isabel said pointing to a laptop that now resembled a pile of parts semi encased in metal with the QC logo on it.

Oliver stared in shock at the remains of his laptop, his fists clenching automatically. He glanced angrily at her, "Don't ever expect us to be on again." He grabbed his laptop, if he could even call it that now and exited her office.

Oliver headed straight to the IT department and went immediately to Liam's office. There had to be some expert there that could help him.

"Oliver, how nice to see you, what brings you down here?" Liam asked with a smile that was clearly as fake as his greeting.

"I have a little issue with my QC laptop" he said but did not show the man the state in which the laptop was. "I need someone to get the data off of it for me. It crashed and the files on it are very important to me." Oliver stressed.

The IT head thought for a moment before a light bulb seemed to go off in his head and he a wicked gleam in his eyes.

"I know just the person that can fix it for you. The cubicle in the back over there" Liam said pointing to the back of the room, as far away from his office as you could get. "Felicity Smoak"

"Ok thanks." Oliver said though he wondered what Liam was setting him up for. He hated been toyed with.

Oliver made his way through the maze of cubicles to the one in the back of the room. He saw a girl in a pink shirt, and black pencil skirt, chewing away at the end of a red pen. She seemed very engrossed in the work she was doing.

"Felicity Smoak," He said drawing her attention towards him. "Hi, I'm Oliver Queen." He finished off with his most charming smile.

"Of course, I know who you are, you are Mr. Queen," She said flustered with her pen waiving in the air.

"No," Oliver said with a slight shake of his head. "Mr. Queen was my father."

"Yes but he's dead. He was shot, in front of you, you were both shot, but you survived, so you can obviously come down to the IT department to hear me babble, I'm stopping in 3, 2, 1." She dropped her gaze to her desk and then looked back up at him ready to hear why he was in her cubicle. He couldn't help but give her a small smile.

"I spilled a latte on my laptop and they said you could fix it for me." Oliver said as he placed the damaged laptop on her desk for her inspection.

"Really," she said as her head tilted to the side while she surveyed the laptop. She looked innocently up at him, "because this looks like an 18 wheeler ran over it, stopped and then backed up over it again."

"If there is anything you can salvage from it, I would really appreciate it." He said with what he hoped with his most charming smile. He really needed that paper.

She glanced at the laptop barely recognising it as one of the laptops issued to top level management. "It would probably be easier just for me to issue you a new QC laptop." She suggested.

"But I have several important QC documents and e-mails that I need on here." He responded.

"If they are important, there will be copies on the server, and your e-mails are backed up on the mail server so you won't lose any of those." She explained to him.

"But I have personal files on here too." Oliver further pressed.

"Well I guess since you are Oliver Queen, I shouldn't really point out that the IT policy states that company laptops should be used for company business only but I guess that doesn't apply to you." Oliver frowned. He felt like he was being scolded like a little school boy. "Leave the laptop with me and I'll try to see what I can get from it. No pornography or pictures of naked women though. If you want those, you've lost those for good." She added.

He laughed, "I can assure you that I didn't use the QC laptop for that type of personal business." Suddenly feeling the need to reinforce his playboy image he added with a smirk, "I have real supermodels to entertain those needs."

"Then please try to keep the supermodels away from the laptop next time." She commented dryly as she moved the laptop to the other side of her workstation and resumed whatever her previous task was. Oliver wondered how she knew a woman was responsible for the state of the poor device but he took her return to her work as his cue to leave. On his way out he saw Liam hovering just outside the cubicle pretending to be dropping files on another person's desk.

The man followed Oliver out into the corridor outside.

"I'm sorry if she was rude to you. I can have her written up for it?" He offered.

Oliver's mind suddenly flashed to the conversation at the elevator and the firing of a blonde in the IT department.

"Wait is that the girl with the pepper spray incident?" he asked

"Yes, she has quite the bad attitude." Liam responded. He had seen a chance to get rid of Felicity. He knew she disliked it when persons abused the company's computers and he was fairly sure that Oliver Queen would have abused his laptop and once Felicity got started about the proper use for a computer, her endless babble wouldn't stop.

Oliver nodded, having just been on the receiving end of one of Isabel's manipulations, he now understood what the man was trying to do to Felicity, "Make one attempt to fire her and I'll get Walter to sign your pink slip instead."

Later that evening when Walter arrived home, he delivered a brand new laptop to Oliver who was sitting in the study pouring over the hand written outline of the paper he had written during one of his classes.

"Felicity Smoak sent this for you. She's the best and brightest person in that department, so whatever problem you were having I'm sure she fixed it." Walter said kindly to him.

Oliver nodded and watched the shiny laptop. Had she really been able to help him? He opened the laptop and inside was a sticky note and scrawly handwriting that he would not have associated with a girl.

Username: Quiver

Password: Oleen

Get it? I switched the first two letters of your first and last names.

He chuckled at her note as he booted it up hoping that she worked a miracle and that all of his files were there. The username and password prompts came up and he entered the information provided. The computer loaded with the same desktop background that he had previously, a picture of a remote island in the North China Sea, Lian Yu, where he had done some survival training about a year after he got out of the hospital. He thought this was a good sign, he pressed the start button and then a video seemed to automatically load. Felicity appeared before him with a frown on her face.

"For the future CEO of QC, you sure need to upgrade your computer skills! And change all the passwords to your accounts, they are way too easy to hack, not that I'm saying that I hacked them, they were saved on your computer which you asked me to recover the files on, and I'm babbling again 3,2,1 " she said

Oliver frowned. Again she was chastising him.

"This is a simple tutorial to show you how to use the power of your laptop to the fullest and not store everything on your desktop! This by the way, can compromise the performance of your laptop."

He watched as the first order of business was for him to change the password on the laptop. She spent at least five minutes explaining the proper length of a password and the use of capital letters, numbers and secret characters in passwords. She then admonished that bikinibabe, while being longer than four letters unlike his hotmail password, was still a poor password. She even commented that it was a good thing he had had the sense not to use his real name for any of his online accounts or he would have been hacked ages ago.

Her next wave of criticism concerned the files on his computer. Nothing was stored in any order or labelled properly. He had remembered creating files for his school work but he had just been saving his documents wherever the last file he had opened was. She went through explaining where she moved all of his files to and that yes she had worked a miracle and recovered everything for him. She had set up six desktop shortcuts. One each for QC files, Verdant files, SCU files, music, pictures and misc. Finally she ended with:

"If you need further IT help, like updating your passwords on your phone to the new passwords for your e-mail accounts, another subtle hint to change your passwords in case you missed it before, you know where my cubicle is!"

As the video closed, he saw the six icons on his desktop as well as another icon marked tutorial. He really didn't think he needed to go through that tutorial again. He went straight to the SCU files and was relieved to find all of his papers there, especially the one which was due the next day. Then he went to Verdant files, music, pictures and then QC. She hadn't missed a file. He decided he would send her flowers as a thank you for a job well done but first he needed to pull an all-nighter to finish off his paper. It was a good thing Verdant was only open on a Friday and Saturday.

Early Friday morning, Felicity Smoak stormed into his office. He had been sitting at his desk and Thea had been sitting on a chair behind the open door researching laptops. They both had to go to SCU today for group projects so she decided to spend some time with her brother at QC first.

"Flowers!" Felicity exclaimed angrily.

"It's usually what someone gives as a thank you." Oliver replied confused as he rose from his chair and came around his desk to stand in front of her.

"Not if you want the entire building thinking I'm sleeping with you, which by the way, they all think I'm doing now, especially after what you personally wrote on the card, cause apparently the secretaries here know your handwriting really well and were able to confirm it was your handwriting." She said as she poked a finger into his chest. A chest she noted was really hard but she filed that thought away to the back of her brain for later inspection. She also noticed how tall he was compared to her and how broad his shoulders were. There was definitely a reason women flocked to him.

"All I wrote was thanks for a job well done." He added.

"Yeah, job, which could be a code word for sex, not that I wouldn't have sex with you, I'm mean you are really hot, and my boyfriends have never complained about by bedroom performance, gosh someone stop me now!" the flustered blonde begged as she was sure that her face wasn't red from anger anymore.

"Felicity, breathe." Oliver said putting a hand on her shoulder and looking into her blue eyes which Felicity thought would not help her blush but she did need to breathe.

He was pleased when she followed his instructions.

"It's just flowers. It's no big deal." Oliver tried to tell her as his thumb absently started to rub circles on her shoulder in an effort to calm her down.

"Oliver, you may not value your reputation, but I value mine. I do not want to be known as another notch on your bedpost. I'm going to have the QC Boys Club hitting on me again, thinking I'm easy and I worked so hard to get them to leave me alone the last time. If you were a woman, you would understand what it's like with this ridiculous double standard!" the blonde furiously explained to him.

Felicity turned around to leave and spotted Thea for the first time. A wave of embarrassment washed over but then she held her head up, looked directly at Thea, "Good day Ms. Queen, I'll just be leaving now. I need to go find where my dignity ran off to." Felicity snapped her mouth shut before she embarrassed herself further and quickly disappeared through the door.

He sighed and glanced at his sister who had the most mischievous smile on her face. He knew that smile well but Thea's words would scare him even more.

"I like her Ollie, she has a point about the reputation thing. This could be a good final project for that business ethics class you spoke about. You could explore ethics as it applies to man vs a woman. I think it's time for you to become a girl Ollie!"


	2. Ch 2 - Olivia Harper

A/N: I forgot to add in the previous chapter that I do not own Arrow or anything Arrow related.

I'm very sorry this chapter was posted later than I promised. The memory stick all of my new stories were on crashed. I lost all of them and I had to rewrite this from scratch. It's funny how it was harder to rewrite chapter 2 than it was to write a fresh new chapter.

Ch 2 – Olivia Harper

Oliver closed up the club at 4:00am and collapsed in bed roughly half an hour later with thoughts of finding a club manager to handle the club since both he and Tommy now had more commitments to their respective father's companies now. He would mention it to Tommy this week because he couldn't possibly start work full time at QC in a few months and run the club. Besides the club was only open on Fridays and Saturdays, with a full time club manager that wasn't one of them, they could probably expand the operations of the club.

Somewhere in the middle of a particularly nightmarish dream about failing his business statistics class he was rudely awakened by water being poured on his face, causing him to spring awake and nearly murder his not so innocent little sister.

"Thea! What the hell?" Oliver's angry voiced bounced off the walls harshly.

"It's time to get up, you have a busy schedule ahead of you and you're already late for your first appointment." Thea chirped as she bounced on her feet in excitement.

Oliver glanced at his clock, 8:03am, "Speedy, I keep my Saturday and Sunday mornings appointment free because of the late nights at Verdant" he reminded her.

"I know but I need a full two days to turn you into a girl." She said happily. "I always wanted a sister."

Oliver rubbed his temple, what nonsense was she talking about now.

"Thea, I have no idea why you want to turn me into a girl or if I should be finding you a therapist but nothing, is more important than sleep right now." He said as he turned his back to her and tried to settle back into his bed. The pillow proved to be wet, so he chucked it at her and grabbed another pillow on the bed. He pulled his sheets and comforter up to cover himself and tried to get back to sleep though hopefully to a nicer dream this time.

The curtains in his room were suddenly flung open letting in bright rays of sunshine that were definitely not conducive to sleep.

"Thea," Oliver said warningly.

"I'm doing this for you." She responded as she sat down at the edge of his bed.

Yeap, it was definitely time to send his baby sister to a therapist, but not the same one they made him go to after his father's shooting. No, that man had done nothing to help him.

"Oliver please, this is a great idea. You'll get an A for sure." Thea pleaded with her brother.

"An A, what does this insane idea of yours have to do with my classes?" Oliver asked.

"Everything! You know you want to impress your advisor. He's the reason you got into this college." Thea responded.

"I know why I got into SCU." Oliver snapped at her. He didn't like being reminded of all the strings that Walter had to pull to get him into SCU, or the millions of dollars that his family had to donate to the school. There was a whole new business building at the school named after Robert Queen. Every time he had class, he had to go into the building. His first two years were filled with teachers that thought poorly of him and fellow students that called him the spoilt rich brat, of course none of them said that to his face. To prove them all wrong, he threw himself into his schoolwork even taking summer classes to get ahead. Those classes were the reason why he only had two classes in his final semester plus his final project.

"Your final project hasn't been approved yet." Thea reminded Oliver.

He glared at her. He was well aware of that. He had written five proposals so far and each one was rejected by his advisor. They were supposedly mediocre and each one came back with the same comment. 'Oliver Queen you are a man with numerous resources, develop a proposal that is deserving of the Queen family legacy.'

"I don't see how dressing up as a woman is deserving of the Queen family legacy?" Oliver remarked.

"Simple, you're going to go undercover in Queen Consolidated as a woman. The secretary for the IT department goes on maternity leave on Friday, so you'll start on Monday, as Olivia Harper, an intern who's studying for her business degree at SCU, that way you can take time off to go to your classes. You'll sort of be like an inside mole to know what staff really think of working at QC. Plus mom really likes the female aspect because she's touted Queen Consolidated as the best place for female executives to work, you can either prove her right or wrong."

"Wait you spoke to Walter and mom about this?" Oliver asked realising that his sister seemed to have thought through this idea of hers.

"Yes and they are fully on board." Thea chirped happily.

"I don't have a choice do I?" Oliver groaned knowing he had lost this battle.

"Nope," Thea said as she gave him her victory smile.

"I'm going to try this for three days, if it doesn't work, I'm finding something else to do." Oliver said stretching his right hand out towards his sister.

"Deal!" Thea said shaking Oliver's outstretched hand. "Now get dressed!" she ordered as she scurried out of his room.

Oliver came downstairs to find a flurry of activity in the drawing room. Several laptops were hooked up to a series of high tech devices all placed around a chair in the middle of the room.

"Welcome Mr. Queen," a short guy with thick rimmed glasses said. "Please take a seat on the chair, it will take about two hours to scan your face properly so that we can complete your mask to wear. Please look at that bulleseye we have set up, you must not move or you will have to start the scan over."

"Mask?" Oliver questioned.

"Yes your female face, Ollie. You certainly didn't think you could pull off being a woman with stubble all over your face!" Thea remarked sarcastically. "I already designed it; you'll be a normal 21 year old brunette with green eyes."

"Green eyes?" Oliver queried,

"Yes I don't want anything to trace back to you and those baby blues of yours can be quite distinctive so I got you green contacts."

Oliver sighed and sat in the chair and Thea picked up a video camera off of a table and started recording.

"What is that for?" Oliver asked horrified.

"To record your progress!" Thea answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You can include the video footage in your final presentation."

Oliver started to rub his temple before a tech swatted his hand away from his face and told him they were about to start the scan. He realised his sister was completely devoted to this crazy idea of hers and there seemed to be no way out of it. He had two hours to sit and think of an appropriate way for his annoying little sister to pay for this embarrassment.

When the scan was finished, he next met with a man from the theatre who would be developing a suit for him to wear under his clothes. The suit would give him breasts and wider hips. The man had promised that these features would make him look more feminine and the addition of some curves would balance out his wide shoulders. There was nothing they could do for his arms but cover it up with nice suit jackets. He would not be allowed to wear any plunging necklines either. He was told he had to dress for his figure, whatever that meant.

He was then taken into another room where he met a lady who was going to wax his legs.

"Thea, why do I have to wax my legs?" Oliver asked her.

"Your legs are the only asset I can emphasise. You have nice legs but you can't show them off with that hair on them." Thea said making a disgusted face as her right hand pointed to his legs. She then handed him one of his short pants that he used to train on his salmon ladder and told him to change and come back.

When he returned, he sat down on the chair and the lady smeared some hot wax on the outside of his left leg. It didn't hurt at all and he wondered why women always said waxing was painful. White strips were placed on the hot wax and then the lady suddenly pulled them off. The scream that left Oliver's mouth left Thea in giggles. Oliver glared at her.

"Is there any particular reason, I couldn't just shave my legs?" Oliver asked as he braced himself for the next strip.

"Yes, waxing will last much longer; I didn't think you would have time to shave those legs every day. You do have long legs Ollie." Thea responded.

Once the Oliver's legs were finished, his sister presented him with a selection of nail polish to wear during his charade. She told him she thought about giving him fake nails but they would have to go through too many of those and since it was cold outside he could always hide his hands in gloves when he was being Oliver Queen. She proceeded to show him how to paint his nails and he realised that she was having way more fun than him but it was nice to see his sister so happy.

After a long talk from Thea about business etiquette for women ,a visit from Walter ensuring him that everything had been arranged at QC for Olivia Harper to begin work and his mother stating how proud she was of him, he headed off to the club for another long night of business.

Sunday morning Oliver grudgingly got out of bed after only four hours of sleep. On today's agenda he would be learning to walk like girl, walk in high heels, sit like a girl, receive voice training to sound more feminine, and receive Thea's advice on wardrobe and how to dress. His suit and mask would also be ready by the end of the day, so the transformation into Olivia Harper would happen just before dinner.

After a very long day, Oliver stood in his bedroom with some very achy feet. High heels were painful and he wasn't even walking in six inch heels. Thea had only given him 1 inch to 4 inch heels to try because over 4 inches she thought he was too tall for a girl. He didn't even know how Thea had even been able to source shoes his side or feminine clothes that covered his shoulders but she had somehow done it. The mask (and the heavy 'handle with care' instruction manual) had arrived a few moments ago on a mannequin, along with the inner suit for him. It was the moment of truth; time to try everything on.

Oliver slipped into the nude colour suit that only covered from his butt up to his shoulders. It was sort of a full piece bathing suit with padding on the hips and bust. He was thankful he didn't need to wear a bra. He did not think his hands could bend behind his back like that. Besides Oliver Queen did not put bras on, he took them off!

Next he tried on one of the dresses and looked in the mirror. The dress was a deep green that stopped mid thigh on him with three quarter length sleeves. It was weird seeing his body in a dress and seeing curves where there were none before. In his younger days, had he seen a body like this, Ollie Queen would most certainly have tried to bed her.

He put on his mask, wig and contacts and called Thea in to see the final result. She smiled but then ran out of the room returning a minute later with her hand full of bags.

"We have to do your make up," Thea said excitedly, too excitedly if you asked Oliver.

He sat at the edge of the bed for over an hour as Thea fussed over his face. He now understood what took women so long to get ready. There were just so many extra steps; they had to do their legs, their nails, their hair and their face. When Thea was finished, she pulled Oliver in front of the mirror.

"Ollie, meet Olivia Harper," she said proud of her work.

"You know Speedy, if you put this much effort into all your classes at SCU, you'll be graduating with a 4.0." Oliver commented as he looked at his reflection in the mirror and did not recognise the person staring back at him.

At 5:30am, his alarm went off reminding him it was time to get up and start getting dressed for work. The whole experience was very new to him. Thea had already laid out what he should wear on his first day of work and he was thankful that she had at least chosen one of the more modest outfits in his new wardrobe. He decided to eat breakfast first then get dressed.

Thea had selected a simple black suit with a plain white satin inner blouse and a knee length black pencil skirt paired with black pumps and black and white clip on earrings. Olivia was from the Glades, she couldn't have an expensive wardrobe so everything was simple yet elegant. His jewellery was all costume and clip on, since he was not piercing his ears for this, no matter how much Thea begged him.

His wig was jet black with straight hair that reached him to the middle of his back. He wanted a wig that would be easy for him to maintain and would not require him to give it any attention during the day. According to Thea, he had to report to duty in the HR department where he would receive orientation and then meet the secretary he would be replacing for some on the job training. They had agreed to drop him off two blocks before QC and he would walk the rest of the way to the building.

Oliver entered the QC lobby at 7:55am and he realised that if he didn't know where the HR department was located, the building would be very intimidating so he tried to act like a shy girl. He was going to ask some of the workers entering the building for directions to the HR department but the looks the men were sending him, made him reconsider this. He spotted an old security guard behind the desk that had glanced at him kindly and decided to approach him.

"Excuse me sir, I'm new here, can you direct me to the HR Department?" he asked him in his feminine voice.

"Sure Miss, that won't be a problem. Can you give me your name and what department you will be working in so I can record it in the log book?" The old guard asked

Oliver gave him the information and the guard was about to give him instructions, when he seemed to have come up with a better idea.

"Felicity," he called out to a blonde that had just entered into the lobby.

Oliver groaned internally. She was the trigger for his sister's new favourite pet project.

"Fred! Hi, how are you? Any word on your granddaughter yet?" She asked smiling up at Oliver in greeting.

"No not yet," he said sadly. "This is Olivia Harper, she'll be replacing Marie while she's on maternity leave. I know its above your floor but I was wondering if you could take her to HR and give her a general overview of where things are at?" he asked.

"Sure not a problem, anything for you Fred," Felicity said happily.

"Great, Olivia Harper," The guard said addressing Oliver, "This is Felicity Smoak, the nicest girl you'll meet in the building and she works in your department."

Felicity blushed at the compliment, "Don't listen to Fred, he's only trying to inflate my ego."

"I don't lie darling." He said to her.

"Its eight, let me clock in and I'll show her around." She said to Fred before turning to Oliver, "The elevators are this way, follow me."

On the way she passed a row of sensors and passed her badge over one. It blinked acknowledging her badge and Felicity continued on to the elevators.

"Those are the scanners. You have to scan your badge in every day so the system knows you're in the building. For the hourly paid workers like you, you head straight to the scanners as soon as you arrive because the accounting system is tied into that system and the payroll automatically works out how much you are to be paid based on the hours the system says you're here for." Felicity said as they joined the back of the line for the elevators.

"Sounds like a complicated system," Oliver said trying to ignore the looks people were giving him.

"Not really, I set it up. It works really well. What was complicated was setting up an interface for HR or Accounting staff to make adjustments for official work that happens outside of the QC building since you have to scan out once you leave the building."

The group in front of them people moved into an open elevator and this moved them to the front of the line. Two guys behind them interrupted their conversation.

"You're new here darling," a guy with brown curly hair said as he looked Oliver up and down. His blonde friend next to him then added, "Why don't you dump Smoak and ride with us alone in the elevator. I'm sure we can give you a fantastic welcome to Queen Consolidated."

"Ignore them." Felicity told Oliver. "They are from Marketing, on the 18th floor."

Oliver nodded. "We are on the 2nd and 3rd floors, they like to keep the IT gremlins as far from the top as they can, never mind that they probably can't do any work without us. Your desk is on the 3rd floor, the HR department is on the 17th, the cafeteria is on the 10th and the gym is on the 5th floor.

The elevator doors pinged open and they walked forward with the marketing guys and four other men. Felicity punched the button for 17th floor and then ignored the men that were so obviously checking Oliver out. The elevator stopped on the 6th floor and nobody moved to get out.

Felicity turned to Oliver, "This floor is accounts, this is where the _**accountants**_are supposed to get out." She commented dryly before turning to glare at two guys who she swore had hearts in their eyes as they gazed at Olivia.

"Oh yes, right!" One of them jumped, hitting the other on the arm as they then tried exit the elevator as the doors were closing.

The elevator didn't stop again until the 17th floor, where they exited. She walked up to the secretary at a desk and introduced him to her. She then left him commenting that she would see him downstairs.

He took a seat on one of the chairs where they kept him waiting for half an hour before the secretary told him they were ready for Ms. Harper. He followed her passed the HR Manager's door labelled Mr. Garth Murry to an HR Officer in a cubicle who was supposed to be giving him an orientation. She was a woman of average height in her late forties with a few wrinkles and her grey hair was beginning to show at the roots. The woman looked Oliver over disdainfully and handed him a file full of information about QC and told him to go to the 3rd floor and report to Mr. Liam Russell, Manager of the IT department. Oliver was surprised that there wasn't more to the orientation but he stood up and went back to the elevators and headed to the 3rd floor.

The elevator doors opened, and two guys carrying a tower and a monitor nearly ran into him in their haste to get into the elevator.

"Sorry," they apologised, "These are for Ms. Rochev and she doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Before Oliver could respond, a short girl with curly blonde hair called out to him, "Olivia, hi, I'm Marie Watson, nice to meet you. You'll be doing my job while I'm gone. "

"Olivia Harper, nice to meet you too," He said walking over to her desk.

"Let me take you to meet Mr. Russell first and then I'll introduce you to the rest of the department." She said.

He nodded and followed her through a familiar path to Liam's office. She knocked once and entered.

"Hi Mr. Russell, this is Ms. Olivia Harper, she'll be holding on for me while I'm gone." Marie said to him.

Oliver watched as the man's eyes scanned his body, "Welcome," he said, "I can see you're going to be a great asset," his eyes dropping down to Oliver's chest area, "to this department."

"I am happy to be here," Oliver lied.

"Marie, show her around, get her a security badge and then settle her down at your desk."

Marie nodded and Oliver was very happy when he exited that office. He was introduced to his co-workers, who all seemed to be in awe of him. He finally reached the last cubicle which had Felicity seated behind her desk actively typing away. The flowers he had sent her were prominently displayed on her desk and it looked like she had been taking good care of them.

"Nice flowers," He commented to her.

"Thanks, they are pretty aren't they?" Felicity said with a fond smile which confused Oliver because he thought for sure she hated them.

"Yes, you must have done something really nice for your boyfriend," Oliver prodded.

"They are a thank you gift for **computer** work done." She said seriously making sure to emphasise that it was work related. "It's the first time anyone has ever actually thanked me for helping them with a computer problem."

Ah, he understood now. She appreciated that he wanted to say thank you, she just didn't approve of the way he said thank you.

"I've kind of grown accustomed to the flowers now." She confessed to him. "I think every week I'll buy some fresh flowers. This office could do with a little more colour." She then dropped her voice, "Don't tell anyone around here but that's a real crystal vase,"

Oliver laughed a deep throaty laugh that made everyone stare at him. He promptly snapped his mouth shut.

"Sorry,"

"Anyway, I need to show you what you'll be doing while I'm gone." Marie said and he followed her back to what was now his desk.

His role would be to take calls and transfer the requests to the technical staff. She advised him which staff to send which type of requests to. Anything very technical or requiring an immediate solution was to be sent to Felicity as she was the best IT person in the department. He also had to make sure the stationary supplies were sufficient for the department and manage Mr. Russell's appointments. It sounded simple enough to Oliver.

It was lunch time and Oliver sat uncomfortably at a table in the cafeteria with his new 'friends'. There were several men leering at him and it was freaking him out. He was accustomed to men looking at him with jealousy and envy, but these looks, he definitely wasn't accustomed to these. He knew exactly what those men wanted and exactly what they wanted to do to him and it made his blood crawl. The women were even freakier. Some were very catty and dismissive, not at all like the seductive, love sick looks he was accustomed to. Before he could charm a woman to do anything for him, but now he was the new girl who was freakishly tall. He made a mental note to wear flats for the rest of the week.

Marie was at his table along with three other secretaries, Melanie Blackwell who he had met when he was in the HR department, Carol Higgins, the Secretary for the Marketing department and Judy Dowell, the Secretary for the security department, these were her friends here, her inner circle as she called it and now he was a part of the circle.

It was actually the first time he had been to the cafeteria. Usually he went out to Table Salt or lunch was provided during meetings. It was larger than he thought it would be and had quite an assortment of food being offered. It was easier to find something to eat than he thought it would have been. He had chosen a bacon cheese burger which had the other women eyeing him distastefully as they had chosen salads to keep their figure intact.

The cafeteria was also very crowded but he easily spotted Felicity as she joined the back of the line to the grill. At least he wasn't the only 'girl' in the cafeteria that would not be eating a salad. He found himself very easily drawn to her and noticed every time she walked past his desk. He also couldn't help but admire her skirt.

"She was the first person you met?" Melanie asked noticing where he was looking.

"Yes," Oliver squeaked reaching for a sip of his water.

"I would stay away from her. She's an Oliver Queen has been." Carol said maliciously.

Oliver chocked on his water.

"A what?" he managed to get out.

"An Oliver Queen has been, as in Oliver Queen has been with her. One of his many one night stands."

Oliver eyes flicked between the women at the table, "Really?"

"Oh yeah, he was down in your department one day with a 'problem', and Felicity was apparently able to 'fix' the 'problem' if you know what I mean." Judy said making air quotations around the words problem and fix.

"I don't see how that means she had sex with him?" Oliver commented dryly.

"She got flowers, that's his modus operandi for his one night stands. He sends them flowers the next day." Carol said as if it were common knowledge.

He could have kicked himself at that moment. Why hadn't he realised how the flowers could have been interpreted by other members of staff. Perhaps he had done as much damage to her reputation as Felicity had suggested.

"Anyway, if you want to move up the food chain here, she's not a good friend to have. She's on the black list." Marie informed him.

"The black list?" Oliver asked again. He had never heard anything about a black list.

The women nodded but didn't expand upon the comment any further as a sudden noise of a food tray crashing to the ground drew everyone's attention to the scene unfolding in the middle of the cafeteria between Felicity and Isabelle.

"Watch where you're going next time!" Isabelle sneered at the blonde. He watched as Felicity flinched at the brunettes tone but then she drew herself together and apologised.

"Another reason to stay away from Felicity, Isabelle is jealous of any girl that gets Oliver Queen's attention and she's been giving Felicity hell since the flowers arrived." Judy told him.

"Why?" he asked. He wasn't aware that Isabelle knew Felicity at all.

"Because she is an Oliver Queen repeat,"

"Repeat?" he questioned rubbing his fingers together. The gossip mill in QC was far worse than he thought it was.

"He's been with her more than once. Most of us underlings here know this. Judy's even seen the footage in the Security department. And to make matters worse, Oliver Queen actually thinks no one in the building knows. It's so stupid, there are security cameras on every floor, in every room, including that storage cupboard on the executive floor they are so fond of. There is always someone watching in this place." Carol responded.

Oliver made a mental note to approach Felicity to erase all the footage of him and Isabelle, permanently.

After lunch, there were no IT emergencies and that gave him time to write a new project proposal for his advisor. He found that he was seeing things at the company with fresh eyes. He already saw a few things he wanted to change, starting with the way new employees received orientation. He wrote his goals and objectives for the project and what he hoped to achieve from it. He also included a chapter outline.

Oliver had never been so happy to leave QC before. He only had two things to do that afternoon, see his Professor and talk to Tommy about hiring a club manager for Verdant. It was when he exited the building that he realised that there would be no town car waiting for him. Olivia Harper was a college student on scholarship to SCU and she lived in the Glades. She did not own a car. He cringed when he realised he would have to take the bus to SCU.

He decided to present his proposal as Olivia Harper in case his advisor doubted that he could pull it off. He was standing outside his advisor's door and hoped another student was not there with him already, as it was his official office hours when any student with a problem could come and see him. Oliver knocked twice on the door.

"Come in," a deep voice said from the other side of the door.

"Hello Professor Maxwell, I'm here to submit my latest project proposal." Oliver said with his feminine voice. It was a small office with a small bookshelf in one corner full of business books. His professor was seated behind a normal size desk full of folders. There were two chairs in front of his desk, his computer was on and he appeared to be working on a handout for a lecture. His Professor was a short man with a small pot belly, a bald head and wire rim glasses. Oliver had seen him with a Santa hat and beard at the Queen Consolidated Christmas Party for Orphans as he handed out presents. He was a very jovial Santa but despite that, he thought his Professor's glare could scare anyone into submission.

His Professor eyed him wearily. "I am sorry miss, but I don't think you are one of the students assigned to me. If you visit the department's secretary she has a complete list of which students are assigned to which advisors."

Oliver smirked and held out his hand. "Olivia Harper, also known as, Oliver Queen." he said, changing back to his normal voice at the end of the sentence. He watched the surprise and confusion flicker across his Professor's face and he handed him his project proposal.

"The answer to your question is in there." Oliver said nodding to the proposal as he sat down.

He watched nervously as Professor Maxwell flipped the first page on his proposal and started reading. He also watched the dreaded red pen starting to leave scratches across his work. He was beginning to think that this idea wouldn't work either as the red pen continued to furiously make its way through his proposal. When Professor Maxwell was finished, he put the proposal down and eyed Oliver over the rim of his glasses.

"Mr. Queen, the typos in this proposal are atrocious, the formatting is off, I'm fairly sure your last paragraph is in a different font and your referencing is wrong. With each proposal you submit, your errors seem to get worse and worse. I strongly suggest you review the Chicago Manual of Style, the department guidebook for writing your final project and reread your work before you submit it because this looks like you wrote it in two hours and brought it straight here."

Oliver was flooded with disappointment but consoled himself with thoughts that he only had to be Olivia Harper for two more days. As he was getting up to leave, his Professor stopped him.

"The disguise is certainly convincing. Have you tested it out on anyone yet?" Professor Maxwell asked curiously.

"Yes sir, I started work today as the IT department's secretary."

"I see," the Professor said steepling his fingers in front of him. "How did that go?"

"Well I learned that the way we do orientation for new staff has to change, far more staff than I thought are disgruntled and never send flowers as a thank you for a job well done to a junior female member of staff." Oliver replied honestly. He also wanted to add that sleeping with Isabel, was quite possibly the worst mistake of his life but he didn't need to tarnish his Professor's view of him any further.

"This proposal is not exactly what I had in mind, but it is an interesting idea, and I'm curious to see where you go with this. I think you can learn a lot from this and develop into a fine businessman. I want a weekly report just to make sure this project keeps going in the right direction and if I don't like what I see, you will have to submit another project proposal."

"So it's approved?" Oliver asked hesitantly.

"I do not like to repeat myself; I expect to see you here next week Monday with your first week update and a revised, **error free**, proposal."

Oliver thanked his Professor and headed home with the first genuine smile on his face for the day. Of course, the smile slid off his face when he realised that the nearest bus stop to his home was two miles from the mansion and he was wearing four inch heels.

Thea spotted Tommy in the foyer talking to Raisa. She knew her brother had got home five minutes before and she spotted an opportunity to have some more fun at Oliver's expense.

"Hi Tommy," Thea greeted him.

"Well, if it isn't little miss sunshine, where is your grouch of a brother, he wanted to see me, something to do with Verdant he said?" Tommy asked.

"He's upstairs," Thea said and then to make it more interesting she leaned forward to Tommy and whispered, "with a girl, a tall brunette."

Tommy let out a deep belly laugh as Thea eyes twinkled and Raisa frowned at her.

"We both know your brother gave up that lifestyle, why are you trying to give me the false hope that the old Ollie has finally returned!" Tommy said to her seriously.

"Don't believe me, go upstairs and see for yourself," Thea goaded.

"This I got to see," Tommy said not believing Thea for a minute. He said a quick goodbye to Raisa, who was still giving Thea her very disapproving look. The younger Queen ignored her.

As Tommy started up the stairs in the foyer, Thea pulled out her cell phone and started videotaping as she followed him up the stairs. This would be priceless.

Tommy burst through the doors to find what appeared to be a naked Oliver with breasts. The wig was tossed on the bed, the high heels kicked off into a corner of the room and his working clothes were scattered on the floor. His mask had been carefully placed on a mannequin in his closet out of Tommy's sight.

"Oh Dear God!" Tommy exclaimed turning around in an attempt to pretend he had not just seen what he saw. This gave Thea a great view of his face and she couldn't control the laughter that erupted out of her.

Oliver immediately shouted at his sister and he looked around the room to see what he could use to cover himself with.

"Thea, why are you laughing? Your brother has become, become a ..." a pale faced Tommy couldn't complete the sentence before another thought hit him. "Is this why he gave up women because he wants to be one? Is he attracted to... men?"

Oliver sighed in frustration and ran his hands through his hair. "It's not what you think. Just let me get changed and I'll meet you in the TV room downstairs and explain everything to you. And Thea, turn that bloody thing off!"

Thea looped her arm through Tommy's and dragged the stunned billionaire out of the room. So far she was very pleased with the outcome of her little pet project and she was certainly looking forward to more. She and Tommy would definitely be planning a little trip to QC's IT department to visit Ms. Harper.

A/N: That's it for this chapter. I wanted to get Diggle in but he got pushed into the next chapter with Laurel and Sara.

Next chapter – Tommy and Thea visit Ms. Harper and Tommy hits on Felicity in front of Oliver repeatedly!


	3. Ch 3 - A New Frienship Forged

A/N: I do not own Arrow or anything Arrow related. Thank you for all the reviews and follows. The Alpha male in Oliver just insisted that he hog this chapter so there's hardly any of his female alter ego.

Ch 3 –A New Friendship Forged

"So let me get this straight, this all started because you sent flowers, to an IT chick, who didn't appreciate it and,"

"She appreciated it." Oliver corrected Tommy.

Tommy frowned and looked at Thea who was seated on the love seat across from the couch he and Oliver were currently occupying in the TV room.

"I thought you said she entered Oliver's office like a banshee and chewed him out," the brunette billionaire asked Thea.

"She did," the younger Queen nodded emphatically.

"She was upset because of what the flowers implied and she was very right about that. I should have thought my actions through properly, no matter how well intended they were. She was not upset with the gesture," Oliver clarified on behalf of Felicity.

Tommy's eyebrows scrunched together. "You know I think that's the first time, I've ever heard you defend a chick," he said before turning to Thea, "Is she hot?"

"No," Oliver answered flatly.

"Yes," Thea responded at the same time.

Tommy eyed his best friend carefully. He knew when Oliver was lying to him and he was definitely lying to him now. He also knew the only reason Oliver would lie about a girl was when he wanted her for himself. This made Tommy very curious but he knew if he pushed too hard he wouldn't get an answer. No, the best way to draw the real Oliver out was to catch him off guard.

"So what did you want to talk about tonight?" He asked deciding to change topic.

Oliver narrowed his eyes at Tommy, there was no way he was dropping this issue. Thea looked surprised as well, but she did not say anything.

"We need to hire a manager for the club. My current schedule isn't going to allow me to keep up with all my responsibilities for the club."

"Ok," Tommy said. "We can put out an advert in the papers on Thursday and Friday for an Operations Manager. I think two days should be all we need to advertise for. I don't want to be sorting through thousands of applications on the weekend."

Oliver agreed and exited the room to fetch his laptop to develop the advert for the Operations Manager.

Tommy turned to Thea as soon as he figured Ollie was far enough away, "What are you doing tomorrow at 10:00am?"

Thea thought about her schedule, "I have one class at 8:00am and another at 2:00pm. I should be free."

"Great, meet me at the QC IT department," Tommy said with a wicked smile.

"I like the way you think Mr. Merlyn," Thea responded.

Oliver had been at work two hours and he was bored. His smitten co-workers kept coming up with all sorts of excuses to talk to him. One even asked him something about a cave and Dungeon and Dragons. He had no clue what that meant. Marie had run off to the bathroom to pee again and he was staring at the phone wishing for a phone call to at least have something to do. He heard the elevator doors ping open and he was initially thankful for the reprieve until he saw his best friend walking towards him.

"Well hello there beautiful," Tommy said with a brilliant smile. "If I had realised that the IT department at Queen Consolidated had such beautiful women, I would have come here sooner."

"What. are. you. doing. here." Oliver said through gritted teeth, all pretence of being Olivia gone.

"Oh we are just here to see Felicity," Thea said as she appeared from behind Tommy.

He glanced between the two, immediately knowing they were up to mischief.

"She isn't here." Oliver lied quickly. He knew very well she was at her desk working on some new code for one of the applied science's projects. He had handed her that assignment himself after Liam gave it to him to give to her. His married boss was another one of those guys looking for excuses to interact with him because Felicity had indicated that she had received the e-mail and that he could tell Mr. Russell that she had already begun work on the project. She had not passed him since she had arrived this morning. He had heard two of their co-workers taking a bet on how long Felicity would stay glued to the computer coding.

Knowing her brother was lying, Thea cocked her head to the side, "Really, I'm sure she's not too busy for Thea Queen."

"Ms. Queen," Marie said as she rejoined Oliver at the desk. "What a pleasant surprise. How may we be of service?"

"Now that is how you greet a person!" Tommy commented as his eyes bored into his best friend challengingly.

Oliver right glared back but it didn't seem to affect Tommy at all.

"We were looking for Ms. Felicity Smoak, is she around?" Thea asked nicely.

"Of course, I'll call her right up." Marie said picking up her phone to dial Felicity's extension.

Oliver prayed she wouldn't answer.

"She'll be right with you. Do you want to take a seat in our conference room?" Marie offered.

"No," Tommy responded. "We're fine right here." He was definitely going to have this conversation in front of Oliver.

Oliver heard the clicking of her heels on the floor before he saw her. She was dressed in a blue shirt and a tight knee length black pencil skirt. He saw the lecherous look in Tommy's eyes and he didn't like it. This was precisely why he didn't want his best friend to meet her. She did not deserve Tommy's antics.

"Wow Ms. Smoak, you are certainly more beautiful than Oliver described." Tommy smiled charmingly while keeping a watch for Oliver's reaction.

A blush rose to Felicity's face and Oliver clenched his fist. He had never been violent towards Tommy but today was going to be a first. He would not let him manipulate Felicity.

"Tommy Merlyn," he said holding out his hand in introduction.

She shook it awkwardly, "Felicity Smoak but you already knew that Mr. Merlyn." She said as she pushed her glasses up nervously. She glanced at Thea and acknowledged her, "Ms. Queen."

"Please call me Thea and call him Tommy" She said as she chucked her finger at the tall brunette man.

"Uh, what can I do to help you?" the blonde asked.

"I have a little computer problem and since you fixed Ollie's so well, I was hoping you could help me out." Tommy said making sure to put on his best puppy face.

Oliver watched in horror as Marie's eyes widen at the mention of Oliver Queen's computer problem. The rumour mill was going to have a field day with Tommy Merlyn, Oliver Queen's best friend, seeking out Felicity Smoak.

"Is the problem another laptop?" she asked curiously.

"No, Ollie and I decided to hire an Operations Manager for the club and I told him I would take care of posting the advert but I'm being asked for an e-mail address for persons to send their applications to and I don't want to use Oliver's or my own personal address so I was thinking of setting one up for the club but I don't know how to do that." Tommy confessed with a little pout of his lips.

"Oh," Felicity said as she shifted awkwardly. When had she become the go-to-IT-girl for billionaires? At this rate Bruce Wayne would be knocking on her door next week.

"Oliver and I would really appreciate it if you could swing by the club tonight and set it up for us. I want to post the ad on Thursday and I need to submit the e-mail address tomorrow. I can assure you, I will make sure you are well compensated." Tommy said leaning in closer to Felicity and winking at her.

Felicity instinctively took a step back from him, pleasing Oliver. "I can assure you that Queen Consolidated compensates me well enough, Oliver should know that already."

Felicity clearly wasn't falling for Tommy's charm routine so Thea stepped in to try to convince her.

"The point is Felicity, my brother and Tommy are hopeless with technology and they need someone they trust to do this for them and Ollie trusts you, so by extension Tommy trusts you. How about this, you do this for them, and you can get unrestricted access to the club anytime you want." Thea offered her.

"I'm not a big partier," Felicity responded automatically.

"There must be something you really like?" Thea asked hopefully.

"Red wine," Felicity offered with a shrug.

"Set up the e-mail and there's a bottle of Lafite Rothschild 1982 in it for you." Tommy said pouncing immediately on her fondness for red wine.

"That's a good wine." Felicity answered.

"Indeed it is." Tommy replied.

"Ok, I'll see you tonight at 7:00." She replied before she returned to her desk.

Tommy gave Thea a triumphant smile.

"Let me show you to the elevators," Oliver said in a sickeningly sweet voice as he stood, rounded the desk and started escorting them away.

"Tommy!" Oliver hissed as soon as he was far away from Marie.

"What?" Tommy asked innocently.

The elevator doors opened and Judy, Melanie and Carol all exited the elevator while trying to inconspicuously check them out. Oliver's anger rose ten-fold. He reached in and pressed the ground button on the elevator and ushered Tommy and Thea in.

"It was not a pleasure meeting you Mr. Merlyn and Ms. Queen, don't come again." Oliver said just as the elevator doors shut. He turned to the gossip mill and their mouths were already running a mile a minute.

"Oh my god, that was Tommy Merlyn!" Carol exclaimed.

"I thought for sure you were joking when you said he came to see Felicity but damn, she must be good in bed for his best friend to come check her out!" Judy commented.

Oliver groaned internally and wondered how he was going to fix the mess that Tommy just created.

Thea was laughing so hard in the elevator she thought she would die of oxygen starvation.

Tommy placed his hands on her shoulders and told her to take deep breaths until she could regain some semblance of self control.

"I wish I could have seen his real face but did you see how white his fists got when he clenched them. I swear he was going to hit you!"

"Who Ollie, he would never hit me!" Tommy replied confidently.

"I don't know about that. His entire body said otherwise," Thea warned him.

Tommy brushed it off. "I have to plan for later. You think I should ask her out for dinner to get another rise out of him?"

Thea shook her head at him, "You are incorrigible."

As Felicity parked her car, she noticed Oliver was waiting for her in the parking lot. There were two cars already in the lot, a black BMW and a silver Audi, obviously, Oliver's and Tommy's.

"You didn't have to wait for me," She said to him as she got out of her car.

"It's an off night, so none of the bouncers are around. You never know who could be lurking around. I didn't want anything to happen to you." He smiled at her. He glanced in her car and saw the Big Belly take out bag. He had noted that she had coded right through the day and hadn't even had lunch. He had planned on ordering food when she got here in case she hadn't eaten yet.

"Where were you earlier?" she asked him curiously.

"Sorry about that. I was working on my final year project. If I had known that Tommy was going to come and pester you, I would have tried to talk him out of it. I know you're really busy." Oliver explained sheepishly.

"Well I'm here now and I hope my wine is," Felicity said with hopeful look.

"Oh it's here, straight from the cellar of Merlyn estate," Oliver said and Felicity beamed at him.

"Well then point me to your computer!"

Oliver smiled and guided her towards the club. He opened the door and as Felicity was entering, he gently placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her towards the office.

"What happened to your face?" Felicity asked Tommy as soon as she entered the office. There was a deep purple bruise on his cheek.

"I accidentally collided with the fist of a very jealous wanna-be boyfriend," Tommy said, his eyes sliding to Oliver to gauge his reaction. Oliver didn't look the least bit guilty.

"You should probably not hit on as many women as you do. It's a miracle you're still alive." Felicity commented.

Behind her, Oliver nodded his head in agreement with her wisdom offered.

"Anyway, this is the computer system," Tommy said pointing to the computer in the corner of the room.

"That's not a computer system." Felicity interrupted, "That's something from the dinosaur age." "No, no, no, no, we can't work with that. And is that your security system!" she said pointing at the lone screen that was switching between cameras.

Felicity shook her head and pulled a blank piece of paper from the printer. She picked up a red pen off the desk and began scribbling away. She glanced outside again and seemed to be taking an estimate of how big the club was.

She thrust the piece of paper into Oliver's chest when she was finished, "Wow, that was harder than I thought it would be."She commented absently before her eyes widened and face flushed, "Not that I fantasize about your chest Oliver. I mean it is fantasy worthy but,... I'm just going to keep my mouth shut now."

Oliver laughed and looked down at the list. "There are a lot of items on this list."

"Oh please, you can afford it. Get me those items and I can build you a state-of-the-art system." She replied.

She pulled out her tablet, "Is manager a good e-mail address?"

"That sounds fine," both Tommy and Oliver agreed.

"Good all done. When you get the equipment, I'll set it up for you to see your e-mail but you can use that address for the advert."

A thought occurred to Tommy, "hey if you can build security systems, can you break into them?"

Felicity froze at the question. She was fairly sure she should not be answering that question in front of her boss's boss.

Seeing the panic flick across her face, Tommy clarified his question, "There's a door to the basement we haven't been able to open. It's locked by a security key pad and well, we really never invested the time in finding someone to get it open."

"So you want me to open it for you?" she asked curiously.

"If you could, that would be great." Tommy said

"Where is it?" she asked, she liked a challenge.

Tommy lead the way to a heavy door secured by a keypad lock.

She cocked her head to the side and looked at the pad curiously.

"You guys got a knife? I need to get the facing off to take a look at the wiring inside?"

Oliver pulled out his pocket knife that he always carried with him and took the facing off for her.

He watched as she studied the wire intently, chewing on her bottom lip and then pulled up what looked like some schematics for the lock on her tablet.

"Oh, I see." She says and reached for the knife in Oliver's hand but he pulled it back instinctively.

"I need this to rework the wiring." Felicity stated exasperatedly. "I've been working with wires since I was seven Oliver, I can handle this."

"Careful, it's sharp," He reminds her before he hands it to her, thoughts of her accidentally getting electrocuted flooding his mind.

She takes the knife for him after a few minutes they heard the door open.

"There we go!" She said turning to face Oliver.

"You're remarkable!" Oliver commented staring into her eyes.

"Well thank you for remarking that!" She said to him proudly.

Tommy felt like a third wheel. They had clearly forgotten he was standing less than two feet from them. He cleared his throat to get their attention and then indicated that he was heading down the stairs. Tommy froze halfway down and glanced behind him quickly to gauge how far Oliver was behind him. Once he realised that Oliver was still at the top and couldn't see into the basement, he quickly retraced his steps back up the metal staircase.

"What's wrong Oliver?" asked him.

Tommy's mouth opened and closed like a fish. "You can't go down there." He finally said.

"Why?" Oliver asked.

Tommy is silent. Oliver can easily tell he's trying to come up with an excuse when Tommy finally blurts out. "It's flooded. Looks like a pipe must have burst down there."

Oliver shook his head, he had already lost his temper with Tommy earlier and he really didn't want to make a habit of that. He pushed past Tommy and walked down the stairs. As he reached halfway, it occurred to him why his best friend didn't want him to go down there. He had been trying to spare him from the stabbing pains in his chest he was currently feeling. Each bullet wound he suffered five years ago had started to throb painfully. His mind was remembering the initial pain of being shot; something that hadn't registered then as he had been too preoccupied watching his father die.

The basement was filled with pictures of Robert Queen and his daily route to and from Queen Consolidated. The irony of the situation didn't escape Oliver. This was the former steel factory that his father shut down. Derek Reston had been a Foreman at this factory and he had lost his job because of his father. Everyone at the steel mill had lost their jobs and QC had found a way to get out of paying severance and pensions. Many lost their homes. This was the place where Reston plotted to kill Robert Queen. All the evidence was here on display. The pain in his chest was getting worse and the walls of the basement seemed to be closing in on him. He couldn't take standing in that room any more. He took the stairs two at time and disappeared through the door leaving Tommy and Felicity in the basement.

"You should go check on him." Felicity said to Tommy as she surveyed the room. She knew they had never found any incriminating evidence for Reston at the shelters he had been reported as living at. There was also the conspiracy theory that Reston had had help in planning the attack. Perhaps the evidence to confirm or disprove that theory was in this basement.

"I need to call the police and I doubt Oliver would feel like dealing with all of that right now. He wouldn't have gone far. He's probably at the bar with that nice bottle of whiskey that took me 3 months to source for the club." Tommy told her.

Oliver was exactly where Tommy said he would be, at the bar, nursing a bottle of a very expensive whiskey. Felicity rounded the bar picked up the correct glass and then sat down next to the brooding man.

"Pour me a glass." She said to him nudging him slightly with her elbow.

He glanced at her. "I'm not good company right now."

She knocked her empty glass against the counter and raised her eyebrows at him.

He sighed and poured her a glass.

"So a toast?" She said.

Oliver eyed her like she was crazy.

"A toast," she repeated, "A toast to survivors, because that's what you are Oliver and you will survive whatever secrets that room holds."

She lifted the glass and downed the drink in one go. She then reached forward and squeezed his hand.

"You'll get through this," She reiterated.

Oliver refilled her drink and as he was pouring the whiskey she noted the faint outline of nail polish on his fingers in those hard to get spots when you're taking nail polish off in a hurry. She cocked her head to the side studying his hands. That whiskey had to be strong if she thought Oliver Queen had been wearing nail polish!

They sat in silence for a while before she heard Tommy greeting a Detective Lance and two other officers. He lead them directly to the basement and managed to keep them away from Oliver and her.

Three glasses of whiskey later and a slight tipsy Oliver turned to a borderline drunk Felicity,

"Felicity," he said sombrely,

"Oliver!" she said flashing him the most brilliant smile.

"I sort of heard this rumour, about footage on the security cameras of me and Isabelle," he said to her.

"Screwing," She giggled in a sing song voice causing Oliver to flinch.

"Can you delete it?"

"Maybe," she teased. "What kind of wine can you offer me?"

"A whole case,"

"Done!"

Tommy insisted on dropping both Oliver and Felicity home as neither was in any state to drive. Oliver owed the club a bottle of whiskey now. That specific brand was for their VIP clients only. Felicity rambled the entire trip to her apartment about how nice his car was and what it must feel like to drive such a beautifully engineered piece of machinery. She also may have made a few explicit comments about the back seat of his car being big enough for both her and Oliver to stretch out on (should they pass out of course). Tommy had never known Oliver's face to turn that particular shade of red before. Tommy was amazed that for someone who was drunk she could still make a coherent sentence.

When they arrived at a quiet neighbourhood on the outskirts of town both boys held on to Felicity, despite her insistence that she could walk to her ground floor apartment unassisted. When they reached the door, Tommy asked for the key.

"They're in my purse, which I don't have." Felicity said looking down at her empty hand. "When did I lose my purse?" she asked herself thoughtfully as she tried to remember where she put her purse. She hated mysteries.

Tommy slapped his forehead. "Please don't tell me it's at the club?"

A light bell seemed to go off in Felicity's head. "The bar!" she exclaimed a little too loudly which had the neighbour opposite her opening his door a few moments later.

"Felicity?" a dark man with arms the size of dumbbells asked. He surveyed the two guys with her, both about his height, one fitter than the other but he was sure he could take them both if he needed to.

"Diggle, my saviour! Can you let me in?" She said pointing excitedly to the door. He had a spare key to her apartment in case of emergencies and this most certainly was an emergency.

He frowned as he took in her appearance. Even though he was four feet away he could faintly smell the alcohol and he noticed how her eyes didn't seem to focus on anything for too long. "I can let you in, but not your two friends," he said crossing his hands across his massive chest.

"They are finished with my services for the night," she said.

Diggle arched an eyebrow, Tommy looked horrified and Oliver had an amused smile. They waited for her to pick up on her inadvertent innuendo and start frantically trying to back track but it never came. Instead, a wide yawn arrived.

"Why don't you crash on my couch instead? That way Layla and I can keep an eye on you." He said as he reached forward and tried to guide her towards his apartment. Tommy let her arm go but Oliver held on.

"How do I know you're not some stalker that lives next door?" Oliver asked with a concerned tone.

"Felicity, am I a stalker," Diggle asked her.

"Nope," she said popping the p.

"Good now that that's settled. Felicity has work tomorrow and she should really get some sleep." Diggle stated firmly. His face clearly reinforcing the message to get lost now or I'll pummel you. Oliver reluctantly followed Tommy back to the Audi as Felicity disappeared behind her neighbour's door.

The next morning Felicity answered the knock at her door with a pretzel in her hand. She was already dressed a grey dress with yellow squares on the side.

"Oliver!" she said surprised. He was dressed in a black pants and a black shirt with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was also sporting a very dark pair of sunglasses.

"Hi," he said, "You're a bit more cheerful than I thought you would be."

"My hangover cure, a Bloody Mary and a pretzel, followed by copious amounts of coffee to keep me awake during the day, it always works for me." Felicity revealed. "What are you doing here Oliver?" she said cocking her head to the side to study him. She had to admit, he looked good in all black especially with the way he rolled his sleeves up. His forearms were very sexy.

"I'm glad you think so," Oliver said with a wide smirk.

"Did I just say that out loud?" Felicity asked horrified slapping her forehead with her hand which wasn't exactly a good idea since she was teetering on the precipice of a hangover headache. She hadn't expected the whiskey to hit her so strongly. Usually she could hold her liquor fairly well but that drink should have come with a safety warning! She could only remember bits and pieces but she's fairly sure she embarrassed herself multiple times in front of two hot billionaires.

"I came to pick you up." He said ignoring her question. Today was the day he had class at SCU so he didn't have to go into QC till lunch time.

"Why?"

"You left your car at Verdant last night. I thought the least I could do was drop you to work." He had felt guilty that he was the reason that she had gotten drunk last night. He seemed to have a lot of things to apologise to her about.

Her mouth formed the shape of an o but then another thought hit her. "Diggle, had offered to carry me to work this morning."

"Here," Oliver said tossing her the keys to his black BMW.

"Seriously? You're going to let me drive your very, very, expensive car?" Felicity said.

"It's not that expensive." Oliver replied.

"It is for me. Are you sure?" she asked again.

"Yes," He said remembering how enamoured she was with Tommy's Audi. He then leaned in closer to her and whispered in her air, "I think you'll find the BMW is more fun than the Audi."

A shudder went through her as his hot breath landed on her ear but somehow she was still able to focus enough to comment that she didn't have her license with her. Oliver again surprised her by handing her her purse.

Just then Diggle came out of his door. "You again," he said glaring at Oliver.

"Oliver, this is my neighbour, John Diggle" Felicity said.

"Who's not a stalker," Diggle reminded him gruffly.

Felicity furrowed her brows confused. "Who said you were a stalker?"

"Your friend did," Dig replied.

"Oliver?"She queried as she titled her head to the side.

"I said that I didn't know if you were a stalker? I didn't actually say you were one." Oliver defended himself crossing his hands in front of his chest.

Felicity bit her bottom lip as she watched the men stare off against each other.

"Diggle," Felicity said tentatively, "Oliver offered to let me drive his BMW."

Diggle considered her words for a few moments before replying. "Ok, just don't crash it. Even though he could probably afford to buy another one in cash, I don't want you getting hurt." He said.

Felicity beamed at him. "I'll tell you all about it later. You wanted me to baby sit Sara tonight right?"

"Yes tonight at seven."

She nodded before she grabbed Oliver's hand and dragged him towards his car.

Felicity was cheerful when she exited the elevators and passed Marie who seemed very interested in her this morning. Oliver had been right, the BMW was fun to drive.

"Where's Olivia?" Felicity asked curiously as she noted the temp was absent on what would have only been her third day at work.

"Oh, she has class at SCU this morning. She'll be here by lunch time."

Felicity remembered Oliver stating he also had class this morning, it really was a small world. She wondered if they knew each other and made a mental note to ask Olivia what classes she was taking at SCU.

Sunday night found Oliver seated alone with his laptop on his bed, the cursor hovering over the tutorial icon that Felicity had made for him. He found after a full week of working with her both in the IT department and the club that he missed her and he just wanted to hear her voice. He impulsively clicked on the icon but the tutorial window he expected didn't load instead another window opened loading something else. Oliver panicked and started hitting keys to try to shut it down. Suddenly, in the middle of the screen a picture of a very sleepy Felicity appeared saying hello. It was at that moment Oliver realised how screwed he really was, because even though she was half asleep, he thought she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

"Uh hi," Oliver said.

"Oliver?" Felicity questioned.

"I clicked on the tutorial thing accidentally and this window opened up," He lied.

Comprehension seemed to dawn on her face.

"Oh I kind of had a bet going with myself if you would need to see the tutorial twice so I programmed the laptop to call me if you needed help." She explained sheepishly.

"Mhhh," he said through tight lips.

An awkward silence settled on them and Oliver felt the need to fill it.

"So if I need to talk to you I can just click on this button again?" Oliver asked

"Yeah, it will call my tablet and once I'm available, I'll answer it," She explained to him.

Oliver felt strangely comforted by this.

"How come you're still awake so late?" She asked rubbing her eyes as if to remind him that normal people were asleep by this hour.

"I was working out, I got to keep my body in shape," he said cockily.

"I noticed," she shook her head, "I meant not noticed,"

Before Felicity got herself into further trouble, Oliver's phone began to ring.

"It's Thea," he said to her as he looked at the caller ID.

"I guess this is bye then," Felicity said with a sad undertone.

"Good night," Oliver said, "I'll see you tomorrow."

The connection closed and Oliver answered his phone.

"Hello Mr. Queen," a distinctly male voice greeted Oliver.

"Who is this?" Oliver asked as a sense of dread filling him.

"You may not remember me, your sister spilt coffee on my laptop two weeks ago, I'm Roy Harper," the man said nervously.

"Why are you calling me on Thea's phone?" Oliver said getting right to the point.

"Thea was attacked on campus. You need to come down to Starling General Hospital."

"I'll be there in 15 minutes." Oliver said ending the call and rushing out of the manor. Whoever hurt his baby sister was going to feel the full wrath of Oliver Queen.

An: I know I promised Sara's appearance but she got pushed back to the next chapter with Laurel. The next chapter should have more of Olivia, the Black list and Isabelle. Does anyone want to read the scene that transpired between Tommy and Oliver that lead to the punch?


	4. Ch 4 - Family

An: I do not own Arrow. The first scene in this chapter has the punch.

I also need to thank all of my guest reviewers: slp, Candida, Randy, Sammy, Jules and 4 guests

Ch 4- Family

It was just passed midnight and Tommy was now officially into Monday morning, the first day of the work week but he was having trouble sleeping. Oliver just had to punch him on his favourite sleeping side. The deep purple colour of the bruise had faded and the swelling had gone down but it was still a little tender. It had been quite the chick magnet though with many women offering to play nurse with him. In his younger days, he would have milked it.

There were other reasons keeping him from his sleep as well. They had received over 1000 applications for the position at Verdant, mostly from females. They had agreed to split the list in half and each pick a top three. They would conduct the interviews on Wednesday and hire the person that night for them to start on Friday. It was easy to dismiss the women with no degrees and no experience which was basically 90% of Tommy's half. The most interesting application he had received was from Sara Lance, the younger of the Lance sisters. He was surprised she had the balls to apply considering what had happened between her, her older sister and Oliver. It had been an absolute mess that resulted in Sara leaving town. As far as he knew, she hadn't been back since but he was fairly sure he knew what bought her back now. Her resume had been impressive and she had done a fair bit of travelling and working at clubs worldwide. Sara presented a very interesting opportunity for Tommy and he made sure she was one of his top three. He wondered how Oliver would handle this; he seemed kind of volatile lately, especially in light on the punch.

_Tommy was seated behind his desk with his feet on top of it. He had been contemplating how to play things with Felicity. He had been quite pleased with Oliver's reaction thus far and he needed to push him a bit further, if he wanted his other plans to succeed. A soft smile played at his lips as he thought of his other plans. He couldn't believe how happy he felt at the prospect of a successful conclusion but he knew he couldn't leave Oliver behind. Oliver finally seemed ready to start a relationship and he had to push him out of his comfort zone to realise that and it definitely seemed like Felicity was the right lady for the task but he had a problem. How to flirt with Felicity without ruining his other plans? Tommy swung his legs off his desk and started to pace the small office._

_His repertoire for picking up women was vast but he didn't think any of his charm would work on her. She had more intelligence than he was accustomed to. He already knew he was going to ask her to dinner and he expected her to brush him aside. The point was to push Oliver to open up again and Tommy was going to use Oliver's jealousy to do that. Oliver's was never very good at sharing things that were important to him. _

_Tommy heard the front door to Verdant bang shut and he poked his head out of the office, "Ollie is that you?" _

_A stone faced Oliver started walking towards him, "What the hell was that about?"_

_Tommy gave him his most innocent expression._

"_Don't give me that expression. You know very well we have e-mails set up for the club already. It's how we liaise with our external suppliers!" Oliver stated angrily._

"_Yes but I wanted one specific for this purpose. In fact the one Felicity suggested was brilliant. The club manager can use that one. She's quite a smart cookie that one .I think I will ask her out tonight but I'll probably have to do a formal dinner and date. She doesn't look like she puts out easy." Tommy was so busy pretending to be deep in thought by casting his eyes to the ceiling and rubbing his chin that he didn't see Oliver's fist on a collision course with his face. A sharp pain erupted on his cheek bone and he was sent stumbling backwards to the ground. _

"_Don't you dare treat her like some one night stand!" Oliver stated angrily, his nostrils flaring. He turned around and headed behind the bar and returned with some ice in a cloth._

_Tommy was in a daze. His mind had literally come to an abrupt halt. Had his best friend just punched him? This certainly had not been part of his plan. He had clearly made the wrong assumptions when he started his scheming and a new plan was needed, preferably one that didn't involve any further physical altercations with Oliver._

"_You hit me?" Tommy said as he grabbed the ice from Oliver angrily._

"_You deserved it and it was just a tap." Oliver responded as he crossed his hands in front of his broad chest._

"_This is just a tap?" Tommy said raising the ice to his rapidly swelling cheek._

_Oliver shrugged, "If I really came at you, I could have broken your jaw."_

_Tommy glared at his best friend. _

"_I'm going to wait for Felicity in the car park." Oliver said before he angrily marched off towards the car park leaving poor Tommy on the ground._

Tommy's cell phone brought him out of his memory. A quick look at the caller ID told him it was Oliver.

"Tommy," Oliver said frantically.

"What's wrong?" Tommy said jumping out of bed. He knew that tone and it demanded action immediately. He glanced around the room for his nearest clothes.

"Thea's been stabbed. She needs blood. I don't have her blood type but my mother said that you and your father have her type. Can you get down to the hospital right away?"

"I'm grabbing my keys right now and I'll call my dad as soon as I get off the phone with you."

"My mother is already on the phone with your dad." Oliver said.

Tommy jumped into his Audi and made it to the hospital in record time.

Oliver dropped the keys to his BMW on a table at the entrance way of Queen Mansion and headed up to his room. Visiting hours at the hospital had finished and he had been kicked out. The good news was that Thea was awake and she was going to make a full recovery. She had been **'studying'** with Roy Harper in the library and after they finished what they were supposedly **'studying'** he had seen her safely to her car. However, neither of them had looked into the car because there was a man waiting for her in her back seat. When Thea got into the car, the man tried to pull Thea into the back seat with him but somehow as the perpetrator was pulling her she got her foot to the horn and she managed to press it. The blaring horn had pulled Roy's attention back to Thea's car and he noticed that she didn't seem to be in the front seat anymore. He walked back to the car curiously and that's when he saw her struggling with someone in the back. He immediately went to assist, punching the car window in with his bare hand to try to get Thea out. The man did not take the interruption well and stabbed Thea in order to buy time to get away and he jumped out the other side of the car. Roy realised immediately that it would be quicker to take her straight to the hospital at that time of night than to wait for an ambulance. He pulled off his shirt and rolled it into a ball and told Thea to apply pressure to the wound. He kept talking to her all the way to the hospital. The staff had immediately attended to Thea when they arrived. When Oliver arrived at the hospital there was a nurse pulling glass out of Roy's hand. Roy had been so full of adrenaline he hadn't even realised that he had several cuts on this hand and an X-Ray had revealed a compound fracture as well. He would be getting a cast for a few weeks.

His mother had forced him to go to work today as Olivia and that had been awful. Liam had sent him up to the accounts department manager, Ben Harford, to deliver a document. Mr. Harford's secretary had sent him straight into the office but the manager wasn't in there. Suddenly, Mr. Harford appeared behind him and groped his butt. Oliver's initial instinct was to hit him but he tapped down on it and instead squeaked and jumped away from the man. Oliver tried to threaten him by saying he would send a letter of complaint to the Mr. Murry, the HR manager, but the Mr. Harford just laughed in his face. He remembered his words exactly as he said it, "Really, who are people going to believe, a well respected manager in the company or some little girl from the Glades." He had a point. Oliver had dropped the envelope on the man's desk and marched down the 14 flights of stairs to his department.

Isabelle had also been calling the IT department for Felicity all day. She made her travel up to her floor to fix a problem that mysteriously went away as soon as Felicity arrived. She would then call back in ten minutes to make Felicity come back up. By the end of the day she had been so frustrated, she had to stay back a few hours to get her actual IT work done.

His visit with his Professor hadn't gone any better. The revised proposal was mostly error free and his professor seemed pleased that Oliver was finding things as a secretary monotonous but then he informed Oliver that his project only contained his views thus far and he had no supporting information to back up any of his assertions about the company. He needed to provide hard data for everything he mentioned. If he said staff was disgruntled, he needed some form of proof that validated that assertion. His final project just became infinitely harder and Oliver had no clue how he was going to obtain supporting evidence.

He entered his bedroom and spotted the laptop on his bedside table. A burning need to talk to Felicity suddenly overcame him and before he knew it, his laptop was on and Felicity's face was staring back at him.

"Hi, how are you and how is Thea?" she asked him. She looked like she had been worrying about him. He knew the news of the attack on Thea had gone through the rumour mill at the company and the PR department had issued a formal statement on the attack but that would have been vague and wouldn't have given a true picture of what had occurred.

"She's fine, I was worried for a moment though. She needed a lot of blood." Oliver confessed. "I'm not her blood type. According to my mother, I'm A positive and Thea is B positive. My mother is O positive so she was able to give her blood. I don't get how this blood type thing works." Oliver said rubbing his fingers together in frustration.

"Oh, its basic biology," Felicity informed him.

"I didn't study Biology at high school, SCU or any of the other four colleges I dropped out of," Oliver answered without missing a beat.

"Really, I thought female anatomy was your favourite subject," She teased.

Oliver glared at her.

"Ok in simple terms, there are four blood groups, A, B, AB and O. Let's say A and B are dominant over O so a person with O is a universal donor and can give blood to anyone but can only receive blood from another O type. Of course if you're Rhesus factor is negative, that complicates things but we won't go into that. A can't give to B and vice versa. However, the AB group are universal receivers and can receive blood from anyone but can only give to AB. Your dad must have been AB. Since your mom is O, his blood type determined yours. He gave you A and Thea B." Felicity explained to him.

He nodded indicating that he sort of understood her explanation.

"Tommy and his dad must be B positive then. They donated to her."

Felicity nodded.

" We need a bodyguard for her."

"Can I recommend someone?" Felicity asked not sure if she was over stepping the boundaries on this budding friendship.

"Sure,"

"You remember my neighbour, John, Diggle?" she enquired.

Oliver nodded. He remembered the man well, especially the disapproving eye that Diggle cast his way whenever he was with Felicity.

"He's ex Army Special Forces. He's done three tours in Afghanistan. He was honourably discharged. He came back right before his daughter was born and he's been adjusting for the last six months. He needs a job. He would be great at it. Dig's a cool guy, who goes with the flow. I think he would be perfect for your requirements."

"Ok, I'll add his name to my mom's interview list but she has final say on the choice." Oliver stated. "Oh and before I forget, Tommy said to tell you the equipment will be in on Wednesday. We're having interviews for the club manager then so you can start setting it up while we interview."

"Ok, I'll be there." She yawned.

"Go to sleep, I'm sure you have a long week ahead of you with QC work and Verdant work."

Felicity laughed. "Kind of hard to sleep when you're still in the office."

Oliver's face hardened. "I don't care how important you think your project is. It's not worth working yourself to death."

Felicity vehemently objected.

"Don't make me drive down there and take you home myself," Oliver threatened.

"Alright, I'm going, I'm going." She conceded knowing full well he was seconds away from grabbing the keys to his car to come and get her.

"Send me a text when you get home,"

"Ok, father!" Felicity replied sarcastically.

Oliver did not close his eyes for the night until he received her text.

Wednesday came very quickly. Tommy's top 3 were up first followed by Oliver's. Sara Lance was the last person on Tommy's list and a cause of discomfort for Oliver. He had done his best to put his past behind him and Sara was a blatant reminder of how badly he had screwed hers and Laurel's lives. A reminder of the person he was, a person he was ashamed of.

"Hello Ollie and Tommy," Sara said shaking each man's hand firmly and sitting in the interview chair.

"It's been a long time," Oliver said clearly struggling with the moment.

"I would prefer if the past could stay out of this interview. This is about Verdant and I'm fairly sure I can do this job as my extensive resume and recommendations have proved." Sara said confidently.

"A part of this job is working with both Tommy and I," Oliver pointed out. "Can you do that?"

"I can," Sara replied in an even tone.

"This is a simple interview, it consists of one question. We'll give you five minutes to think carefully and then you can give us your answer." Tommy explained.

Sara nodded.

"Oliver and I are looking to expand Verdant, how would you go about doing that?"

Sara laughed, "That's easy, I did my research before coming to the interview. Verdant currently operates only on a Friday and Saturday, I assume that has to do with your schedules at QC and Merlyn Global. I also assumed that you wanted a full time manager because you were looking to expand so I conducted a little bit of market research. There is no real demand for a club to be open on Monday – Wednesday nights. Thursday could support a crowd to at least break even. The real money maker would be in renting out the club on those days to corporate and social events. To build the club's reputation as a good spot for these types of events, offer the club free of charge to charity events. As you know, all of the city's major players attend charity events, and that would be your opportunity to showcase that Verdant is a club at night but also a sophisticated and elegant location to host other types of events."

The lights in club suddenly went out.

"Did you forget to pay the electric bill?" Sara asked

"Sorry, my fault," Felicity said emerging from the office using her phone as a flashlight. "I assume the breakers are in the back somewhere?" She asked.

"I'll get it," Oliver said taking her phone from her and disappearing into one of the store rooms.

The lights came back on and Tommy called Felicity over.

"Everything ok back there?" He asked glancing through the open office door; the fire alarms weren't going off so he assumed that was a good sign.

"Yeah I'm fine, just accidentally let two wires that weren't supposed to touch, touch." She explained.

"Just be careful," He said, the last thing he needed was Ollie laying into him again if Felicity got hurt.

Felicity glanced at the petite blond that they were interviewing.

"Hi, I'm Sara Lance, Verdant Night Club Manager," Sara said boldly as Oliver returned and handed the phone back to Felicity.

Confusion flickered across Felicity's face. "I thought you guys weren't going to decide until you interviewed all of the candidates?" Felicity asked both billionaires.

"They haven't yet but I'm the best person for the job, so they'll hire me," Sara insisted.

"In that case, I'm sorry the power went out in your club Ms. Lance. It's not like I did it purposely to make out with Oliver, not that I wouldn't want to make out with Oliver, I mean he is exceedingly handsome and a girl would have to be blind not to want to ... why hasn't anyone stopped me yet!" Felicity said causing Sara and Tommy to laugh and Oliver to smirk.

"You're cute," Sara responded, "Can I keep her?" she asked looking over at Oliver and Tommy.

"No!" both men chorused.

"Pity, I'm sure we could have had a lot of fun," Sara said to Felicity.

Oliver cleared his throat.

"Ok, ok, I get the hint, leave you guys alone and get back to work." Felicity said turning around and heading back to the office.

"Before you go Sara, why did you decide now was a good time to come back?" Oliver asked curiously.

Sara glanced at Tommy with a confused stare before answering Oliver, "My dad actually, they recently diagnosed him with coronary artery disease. He needs heart surgery. He's got three arteries blocked. My family needed me so I came back."

Oliver understood the feeling of having your father go through heart surgery. His own father had survived a quadruple bypass, which had been six months before his death. Robert Queen had been put on a strict diet before the surgery as he had to lose weight to improve his chances of survival. They had also asked family members and friends to donate blood to prepare for any worse case scenarios. Thea had been too young to donate blood at the time but he remembered Tommy and Malcolm couldn't donate because they weren't his father's type. The room seemed to start closing in on him and Felicity's explanation about blood types flowed through his head.

"Excuse me a minute," He said rising and heading to the office.

"Felicity, would Tommy and Malcolm been able to donate blood to my father?" he asked her earnestly.

"If he were AB positive, yeah." She answered as she fiddled with two wires that were being connected to the back of a server.

"And what if I could donate blood to him but they couldn't?" Oliver pressed.

Felicity frowned and turned around to face him, "That would mean that your father was A positive but the implications of that would mean..." Felicity paused not knowing if to voice that thought out loud.

"Before my father died, he needed heart surgery; Tommy and Malcolm were ruled out because they had the wrong blood type, what does this mean?" Oliver asked as he walked over to sit besides her.

Felicity took his hands in hers and looked him square in his beautiful blue eyes. "If the information you have provided me with is accurate, then you and Thea do not share the same father."

Oliver pulled away from her and started to pace the room frantically while Felicity watched the pain etched across his face, "I have to get out of here."

Oliver stormed towards the exit calling out to Tommy over his shoulder that he was fine with whoever he picked, something urgent had come up and he needed to see his mother right away.

It was close to lunch time the next day when Felicity entered the CEO's office. She had timed her entrance for when his secretary would be absent. That woman was like a pitbull with a bone. She guarded the entrance to Walter's office as if it were holy ground. She would take her lunch break half an hour before the rest of staff so that there would be no queue in the cafeteria and she could collect her lunch and return to eat at her desk. Depending on the elevator, it could take between 10 to 15 minutes.

"I need to speak to you Mr. Steele," Felicity said walking quickly to his desk. She didn't want their conversation interrupted.

Walter frowned, "Does this concern our side project?"

"No, something else, I uh, recently came upon some information last night with Oliver at the club. It's going to cause him severe emotional turmoil and I'm rather concerned that with all the pressure of QC, SCU, Thea's attack, that room under Verdant and now this, that it might be a bit too much for him."

Walter nodded. "You're referring to Thea having a different father."

"You knew?" she asked surprised.

"I found out last night, when Oliver confronted his mother with his newly acquired knowledge." The fight was ingrained in his memory; Oliver had barged into their bedroom and demanded that his mother explain why he and Thea had different blood types.

"So it is true."

"I suspect you knew that already Ms. Smoak. Oliver's sudden in depth knowledge of blood groups didn't come out of thin air. I will keep a close eye on my step son but you do not need to worry about him, Moira is doing more than enough worrying for everyone in the family right at the moment. She will find a way to fix this and regardless of the outcome, I will support my family. Right now I want you to focus on our side project, things seem to be picking up pace with it."

"Yes, something certainly seems to have spurred them into moving faster," Felicity agreed.

"I'm concerned about our meetings. Perhaps it's time we discuss this project at the Mansion. "

"I can't just come to the mansion to talk to you." Felicity pointed out.

"No you can't, which is why your work with Verdant's security system is the perfect cover. Every morning since Thea's attack, we've found reporters hiding behind the rose bushes trying to get pictures of the family. It's shown us that there are some serious flaws in our security system and I would like it upgraded. That will be your excuse to be at the mansion. I want you to design the new system. I'll have a company do the actual installation since that would be too much work for you."

Felicity agreed and was about to leave when Walter called out to her.

"Oh and Ms. Smoak, it has also come to my attention that Ms. Rochev has been unnecessarily abusive towards you."

Felicity opened her mouth to explain but Walter cut her off.

"Don't worry; she'll be away at our subsidiary in Russia for the next 3 months for a rather extensive internal audit of our practices and procedures there."

Felicity smiled and thanked Walter. She glanced at the clock and knew she needed to exit quickly. As the elevator opened up, Walter's secretary looked at her suspiciously.

"He had a computer problem," Felicity said as she shrugged and hustled into the elevator as the Secretary exited.

That afternoon Oliver was in the ladies room. His suit had a few buttons in the front that allowed him to easily relieve himself. This was the worst part of being undercover, using the ladies room. He felt like it was the ultimate invasive act. He was in a stall when he heard the door slam open and two girls enter. One was clearly crying and the other seemed to be trying to calm her down.

"I can't believe he did that. He just sent us there to deliver a document for him and he started touching me." The crying voice said to the other.

"It's ok, they won't go too far with you since you're ne," The calm one replied.

"He asked me to unbutton my blouse!"

"If you don't, you'll be black listed and you know nobody lasts long on that list."

"That nerd in his department has been on the list for like six months."

"She's different. She's smart and she's somehow found a way to stay ahead of them. It's almost as if someone on top of the company is looking out for her. Besides she doesn't have a family like you do. You can't afford to lose this job, you have your children to take care of."

"Don't you think I know that but I don't want to end up pregnant like Marie."

"That was a mistake from what I overheard one of the Managers saying. Forget about Marie, just focus on the here and now and your kids. This is your first transgression so they will forgive it. Let's head back upstairs and get back to work."

The door to the bathroom banged shut and Oliver emerged from the stall. He wasn't quite sure what he overheard but based on his experience on Monday and what they were saying it sounded like there was a sex ring in the office. He was stunned. Never in a million years would he have thought that sort of thing happened at his company. That poor girl had sounded terrified. As he approached his desk he realised that Felicity was waiting for him at his desk with a few folders in her hands.

"Hi Olivia, can you file these for me please?"

"Sure," He responded. He found it easier to pull off a feminine voice if he stuck to one word answers.

They stared at each other for a few moments before Felicity frowned.

"Those are green coloured contacts aren't they?

Oliver fidgeted; she seemed to be the only one that ever noticed something off about him. First the remnants of the nail polish on his fingers at the club and now his contacts.

"Well I guess no matter how gorgeous we are, we always think there's something wrong with us. I think my butt is too big sometimes." Felicity commented before leaving.

Oliver watched her walk away and he decided that he very much liked her butt.

It was Sara's first night as club manager and she had invited her parents and her sister to come to the club. She had been thrilled when Tommy called her an hour after her interview to tell her that she had been hired. She had been nervous as hell for the interview but in the years that she had been away she had learnt how to project a confident appearance and not let people know how she was really feeling.

Sara was not sure what things would have been like when she returned to Starling City but she certainly hadn't expected things to go so well. Her parents, even though they were separated now, were happy to have her home and after a rough couple of weeks with Laurel, their relationship seemed to have improved dramatically. It felt like they were actually sisters, the way sisters were supposed to be. She hadn't expected to find a job that she would like for at least six months. After all, the job market was not that great but she had only been back a month and she had found a job she knew she would enjoy immensely. Her dad had not been too thrilled though. He still wondered what happened to his little girl that wanted to be a doctor but that little girl had been a total rebel and slept with her older sister's boyfriend. She was not doctor material. She had learnt life's lessons the hard way and she wasn't eager to repeat any of her past mistakes.

She came in to work at the requested time and signed a one year contract with a three month probation. Tommy then showed her around, including the basement they had yet to decide about. Sara immediately had a few ideas for using the basement as a special VIP lounge but Tommy told her to wait a few more days before they broach the subject with Oliver as he was more broody than usual lately. When the staff arrived she was introduced to them and before she realised it the club was in full swing.

Oliver decided to spend his night in the office with Felicity as she tested out the security system. She had set up multiple screens to view the cameras so you had a better real time picture of what was going on in the club instead of one screen cycling through a host of cameras. It was quite interesting to watch the people in the club from a neutral distance. Human social interaction could be quite fascinating. A conversation between Laurel and Tommy had caught his eye and he was quite intrigued as Tommy had never mentioned to him that he spoke with her at all but from their interaction they seemed very comfortable with each other.

Felicity glanced at Oliver and noticed a smile on his face she had never seen before. It was soft and tender. She looked at the screen he was watching and saw Laurel Lance, his ex that Sara had introduced her to earlier in the evening. At first she assumed that he was interested in her again but then she noticed that it was Tommy who was talking with Laurel. Their whole interaction screamed that they were a couple but she was not aware that they were dating. She's fairly sure someone would have mentioned that to her by now, especially since they just hired Sara to be the club manager. A fight broke out on one of the other monitors and she immediately drew Oliver's attention to it. He radioed to a bouncer and headed out into the club to smooth over the situation between the disgruntled parties. She noticed on the camera that Sara had arrived quickly to the scene and seemed to have the situation under control quickly.

A little while later, Tommy came into the office and Felicity smiled broadly at him. It was his turn to be put in the hot seat.

"So how long have you had that thing with Laurel going on?" Felicity asked Tommy.

"What thing?" Tommy asked pretending he knew nothing.

Felicity gave him the 'do I look stupid look' and he sighed in resignation.

"It's complicated, just don't mention anything to Oliver," Tommy begged with puppy dog eyes.

"Oh I am pretty sure he already knows." Felicity said causing Tommy to panic, sensing his discomfort she further added, "I don't think it's going to be an issue."

"You sure?" Tommy asked. He was very apprehensive about this, after all, he was one of the few people that knew the whole history between Oliver and Laurel.

"Absolutely," she said confidently.

"You know besides, me or Thea, you're the first person I've met that reads him so well," Tommy commented to her.

"It's actually not hard; once you don't believe that he is still a billionaire playboy,"

"Why don't you?" he asked curiously.

"Because I fixed his computer; the files you store say something about you and he's very focused on QC but more importantly he wants to do what is right. That's the sign of a good person."

"What else does he have on there?" Tommy asked remembering Oliver was supposed to have a rather compromising picture of Tommy that had been used for black mail a few times.

"I keep his secrets," Felicity said with a large smile.

Oliver entered the office, "Tommy we need to talk." He glanced at Felicity and they shared eye contact for a few moments. She seemed to understand him perfectly and headed to the door but before she stepped through she asked cheekily, "Got anymore of that great whiskey?"

"No!" both men said to her before she closed the door.

An uncomfortable tension settled in the room before Tommy decided to go first.

"Look Oliver, about Laurel, I know this is awkward but I didn't mean for this to happen. CNRI had a client that used my mother's clinic in the Glades and in helping Laurel with her case, we sort of grew close. We haven't started a relationship or anything but I think that I would like to but only if you're ok with it. I know I shouldn't really be dating the only woman you ever had a real relationship with and I know that a part of you was kind of holding out hope that you and Laurel could become something again but I can't help what I feel for her. There's this spark and it's very overpowering. I can't fight it." Tommy confessed.

Oliver raised his hand and Tommy flinched thinking Oliver was going to punch him again. This caused Oliver to chuckle as he rested his hand on Tommy's shoulder, "I approve. Go ahead and ask her out."

"You do, just like that?" Tommy asked. He had expected things to be different. Perhaps his pushing of Felicity into Oliver's life had softened the blow of him and Laurel.

"I have no arguments against it. If she makes you happy go for it. It's about time you stopped playing the field."

"So why did you look so grave when you asked me to talk." Tommy asked.

The grave look reappeared on Oliver's face.

"You remember how you always teased that Thea could be your sister instead of mine?"

"I remember," Tommy responded fondly, his eyes glazed over as he thought of a young Thea he and Oliver had taught how to ride a bike.

"She **is** our half sister."

An: Did anybody think that Felicity looked like a Queen with the way she was sitting in her chair while Malcolm talked with the team in the last episode? I just realised none of the breaks I put in between the scenes shows up!


End file.
